


Junctures

by Tabithian



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU - Comicverse, Nightwing - Fandom, Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-28
Updated: 2012-12-28
Packaged: 2017-11-22 17:01:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/612138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabithian/pseuds/Tabithian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim knows where they are. <i>When</i> they are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Junctures

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a fill for a prompt on Tumblr a while back, but strayed a bit from the original prompt. Um. *hands*

Tim knows where they are. _When_ they are.

"Where are we?" Dick asks, moving to examine the jeep when a pained groan reaches their ears.

Dick takes off in the direction it came from, and Tim.

Tim closes his eyes for a moment, because suddenly he _remembers_.

"Tim?"

Tim follows Dick and sees himself sprawled over the sand like a broken toy that's soaked with blood - Z's and Owens' and Pru's. _His_.

Dick's looking between the him of five years ago and him, something like horrified realization on his face.

"I always wondered if I hallucinated this," Tim murmurs. He feels a strange sort of detachment as he kneels beside Pru to make sure the bandage is doing its job, keeping her alive long enough to get her to help. "Ra's was...cagey when I asked what his people found when they came looking for us."

Dick's quiet, angry, as he checks Tim - the one from five years ago. "You never told us about this."

And. Tim pulls his glove off and takes Pru's wrist in his hand, fingers resting against her pulse. Steady, stubborn. Just like her. 

"This is when I lost my spleen," he says mildly. He's told them about that, Dick's felt the scars. Not what Dick meant just now, Tim knows, but. Tim had liked Z, Owens, and this.

Dick sighs, taking the younger version of Tim in his arms, wincing at the weak, wavery, "Bruce?" that comes from his past self because he doesn't know. 

Doesn't know that it's Dick in the Batsuit, Dick who's carrying him oh so carefully to the jeep. Dick who's getting Tim's blood all over him and looking like it's killing him. (Because he didn't know _this_.) 

They've been over this, again and again in the past. Mistakes made on both sides, both of them reeling from Bruce's loss and the weight of Gotham on their shoulders. Hurting and ill-equipped to help one another at the time.

"Dick," Tim hefts Pru up, careful of her injury and follows Dick to the jeep. 

He watches Dick settle the younger version of himself in the back of the jeep, sweeping a smear of blood away from his cheek with his thumb, jaw clenched. Watches his younger version's eyes open, taking in Dick backlit by the setting sun, nothing more than a silhouette, strong and tall and _Batman_.

"I'm sorry," Dick says, but he's not talking to Tim. Or he is, but he's talking to the one slowly bleeding out. "I'm so sorry."

Tim bites the inside of his cheek as that Tim smiles, blood loss dragging him back under where the only things he'll remember are heat and pain and overwhelming loss because for a moment it had felts as though Bruce was in reach. 

“Dick - “

Dick takes Pru from him without a word and secures her next to Tim's younger self. 

They don't say anything as they drive to the spot Tim remembers gaining consciousness, remembers struggling to get Pru to safety from. At the time he hadn't considered how he'd gotten there in his condition, the important thing being that he had, that he'd saved Pru's life. 

He watches as his younger self stumbles away, body failing him but determined to keep Pru alive.

Dick is silent and angry beside him, at Tim, at himself. Tim reaches out, fingers gentle as he touches Dick's face, drawing his attention away from the past and into the present where it belongs. 

"You saved my life, Dick."

Because he had, hadn't he? Tim was in no shape to get Pru all the way to the city, the hotel. He has hazy memories of someone he'd thought was Bruce. Voices that were painfully familiar. Time had blurred the memories, and he'd half convinced himself it that they'd been the product of a delirious mind, and not.

Dick doesn't look convinced, but. "I hate time travel," Dick says, more of a tired sigh. 

Tim smiles, just as tired, and takes out the device Booster gave them. "You're not alone on that one, you know."

He really isn't. From the evil version of the Titans and a darker future to Darkseid and Bruce and now this - Tim is hardly the biggest fan of time travel there is. 

“We need to talk about this,” Dick says.

“There's nothing to talk about,” Tim says. Nothing they haven't already said, over and over again _I'm sorry_ and _I should have listened_ and _It's not your fault_ , Dick to Tim, and Tim to Dick because neither one of them had done a very good job of listening, and there had been prices to pay because of it. 

“Tim.”

“Dick.”

Time stretches on, ticking of a clock. 

Dick looks at Tim, and Tim looks back. Things said and unsaid, apologies and forgiveness and everything in between.

There's a reason Booster gave them this mission, probably.

“I hate time travel,” Dick says again, looking away. There's a tiny, barely there smile at the corner of his mouth. 

“I know,” Tim says, thumb pressing down on the button that will take them back to their own time. “Me too.”


End file.
